In flight operation of a covey or formation of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying in close proximity presents significant potential for mid air collisions between two or more of the UAVs. It is expected that any such mid air collisions will prove fatal to a least one, and possibly all, of the UAVs involved in such a collision. UAVs are typically controlled by human operators and operate with a ground system that is aware of their position. Maintaining a sphere of free (or empty) airspace around each UAV operating in a small covey or formation presents a major challenge to a human operator, and can become nearly impossible for a human operator when the covey size increases in number and/or when individual UAVs of the covey work in very close proximity. As the UAV covey size increases, the number of human operators controlling the UAVs may be increased. Although this may present an initial solution to successful operation of larger UAV coveys, adding more human operators may become impractical as the covey size grows further in number.
Pre-mission planning is focused on reducing the possibility of aerial collisions among formations of UAVs, and altitude separation and or location segmentation among the group of UAVs may be employed to further reduce collision possibilities. Image processing is being developed to allow an operator of a given UAV to be able to “see” other UAVs in the formation from the perspective of the given UAV.